Vaske
by Digital Ramos
Summary: Story based on the possibility of the Mirari as Yawgmoth's prison, and his return.


Prologue: Wishes  
  
"If I could have one wish," said a Benalian boy, "I'd get rid of that Lord of the Wastes!"  
  
The mind of Glacian, the Bones of Ramos, the Eyes of Urza.  
  
The will of Gerrard. Not for his courage, not for his valor, not for his strength, his resolve, was Gerrard chosen to wield the Legacy. He was chosen because he was the one man that wanted more than anything else, even the very love of his life, to destroy Yawgmoth. "You have destined me to lose everything!" he said to Urza. And he had. He'd lost everything, not to Urza, but to Yawgmoth.  
  
Twice before, the Eyes of Urza had come together at catastrophic events. They would reflect the ultimate purpose, whether its user even knew it or not, of their holder. Radiant was destined to destroy her goddess, Serra's plane, for no angel is fit to rule heaven. Farther back before that, when Urza and Mishra came together one last time, when Urza set off the sylex, bringing the stones together in his head, resurrecting him as a planeswalker, for that was their purpose at the time. But the final time they were brought together, the will of the user was absolute, the first man ever to truly be able to control the stones. To defeat Yawgmoth, his purpose was. And so he did. And so they did, along with the rest of the Legacy.  
  
It was believed by the few who knew anything, that, after that, all of the Legacy that existed was alive yet in Karn, complete. But this was not entirely true. For, even the start of the Legacy was the rending of one stone into two. The united Eyes of Urza did not stay in Karn. Their previous power, that of Urza and of Glacian, did. The stones themselves, instead, achieved their purpose: trapping Yawgmoth. The Lord of Death could not himself be killed, for who can kill death itself?  
  
No. Instead, the stone that had once held the essence of a world now held the master of it. "Poetic justice," Glacian had called it. For half a century, the god seethed in his stone. He'd been tricked again. By Rebbec, by Glacian, by Urza, by Gerrard. He now knew the true purpose of this thing, but it was too late. He couldn't escape on his own. And so he slept, slept for another half a century as he had done for ninety centuries before.  
  
And then along came a boy with a wish.  
  
Through his many-faceted powerstone eyes, Yawgmoth could see the desires of those who held the stone, and corrupt them. And then he remembered what he himself had seen when he'd looked into powerstones centuries before. "A world made mine." And so he showed it to the boy. He saw promise in this one. Perhaps he could use him to escape. Soon, though, it passed into the hands of others, and he showed them, too.  
  
There was a barbarian. Ambitious, strong, brave, foolish. Another perfect candidate. Then came an old man, powerful, with greed beyond any Yawgmoth had yet seen. But this one wasn't the right one. Too corrupt already to be useful. Then came an even more delicious one. The aven. Kirtar. He fought for good, to uphold the just. His wish had been redemption, to erase the sins of the unworthy of the Order. So Yawgmoth sent a flashing light, and destroyed most of the Order, wiping out the wicked of it. Kirtar included.  
  
Souls for the Lord of Death. They made him a good portion stronger, but not enough. It would take many more to escape his prison. But, then, the merman found him. This was his favorite of all. Laquatus reminded Yawgmoth of himself as a mortal. He could get a lot done with this one before he destroyed him. But, Laquatus didn't keep the stone long. It passed to another sea creature, a cephalid. Aboshan was useful, too. Easily corrupted. More territory to rule, Aboshan had said he wanted. So Yawgmoth gave it to him. He sank part of the continent into the ocean for Aboshan. Unfortunately for Aboshan, the blast destroyed him, too.  
  
Then, it passed to a woman. This one had been strange. All she'd wanted was to deliver the Mirari back to that old man Yawgmoth had seen before. The First of the Cabal. Virot Maglan was his name, but no one seemed to know it. The trip didn't take long, and soon it was back in the hands of the First. This time, he didn't pass it on to another right away, though. He sent it first to a vault. Another prison. Not for so long this time, though. Soon it was back in the hands of the boy.  
  
The boy, though, was clever. He seemed to understand the Mirari--that was what it had come to be called--and the danger of it. He wished for smaller, more specific things. Wishes that could not so easily be manipulated. And so Yawgmoth bore them, for a while. But, slowly, he corrupted the boy. As Chainer's desires grew bigger, his wishes grew more dangerous. Then, at last, fool he was, he brought every dementia monster able into the Cabal City. Thousands died in an instant, and Chainer died soon after.  
  
Then the barbarian took it up again. This one, too, was clever. He knew more than any of the others the danger of this stone. But he had pride, too. That was his enemy. He was his own enemy. In his defense of himself and of the Mirari, he killed hundreds, thousands in Cabal City, in the Pardic Mountains. He even killed his own sister. That was the most delicious of all. In the moment that Yawgmoth slid into her, he found the greatest fool yet. She was another Mishra. So he put his own will into the wish, just this once. He poured out his hate into this woman. And the will to live.  
  
And so she did. She survived the night, and then the long trek to the Krosan forest, while Yawgmoth slept from his exhaustion, allowing Kamahl remorse that might have destroyed Yawgmoth's chances. But his desires lived on in Jeska. When Yawgmoth again awoke, Kamahl was battling Laquatus, the one who wanted the stone most, for the last time. Kamahl ended the battle with the sword stuck into the very heart of the Krosan Forest. Fooled again.  
  
Though Kamahl's destructive wishes were no longer carried out by the Mirari, the forest had wishes of its own. They were innocent enough, it would have seemed. It simply wanted to grow, to live, to exist, to be strong. And so Yawgmoth granted its wish. It grew more than it had ever grown before. Elsewhere, his seed grew in the new Urza and Mishra, in Kamahl and Jeska.  
  
Jeska was on the brink of death, and just when salvation came to her, in the woman called Braids, the one Yawgmoth couldn't corrupt. But she became of more use to him this way. She brought back Jeska to life, with the hatred for her brother. He had killed her. And then the old man, Virot, tried to kill her, but that only made her stronger now. For, when Yawgmoth had poured himself into her, she became much of what he had been--Death.   
  
She was not immortal, but death cannot be destroyed the same way life can. And so Death's power spread throughout the continent. And Yawgmoth's power grew. As he made it grow, he sapped the life of Krosan, and with Krosan, the newly changed Kamahl. And as Jeska killed, Yawgmoth grew in power, too. Before long, he would rise again.  
  
Then the Numena wars, came, and with the destruction came the completion of his goal. Kamahl, now another of Yawgmoth's unknowing servants, delivered the final blow. In one fell swoop, he killed the three mothers of the Numena, and Yawgmoth rose. But now came a choice. Yawgmoth still needed one thing: a body. All that was left of the killing cloud was his essence, and that was not powerful enough to take over. Not yet.  
  
So he searched, searched through the amplified power of his Mirari self to find a candidate. Then through his faceted eyes he saw one. A man. "Just Ringer. Kind of like just Yawgmoth." The man had a point. He was in a backwater province of the Cabal's empire, much like Yawgmoth had been. He used unconventional methods to attract attention, to gain souls. He even looked a bit like Yawgmoth had as a man. And so the Lord of Death chose. 


End file.
